9 Months of Nicholas

It's time for an update on Nicholas. He is over nine months old now, and changing and learning new things every day. This past week has been an especially big one for him!

He had his 9-month checkup at the beginning of this month, and he measured in at 28.75" (66%) and 18 lbs. 12.5 oz. (21%). That means his weight has dropped off quite a bit, even though he's still fairly tall. I know both Lexie and Gavin's weight had dropped off considerably like this at their 9-month checkups, too. He also had a couple of weeks where he was refusing to nurse more than a few times a day, so his intake had cut in half. (I tried to feed him, he just would not eat no matter how many times I offered!) I have read that when kids are working on a new major skill (like crawling,) they don't want to eat or sleep as often. But since then he has returned to nursing more frequently and he is now up to three meals a day of baby food, and I know he is gaining a bit more weight. He loves baby food, and also loves to feed himself little cereal puffs, Cheerios and small pieces of soft fruit. On April 6th, he learned how to sit up from a hands and knees position. He practiced doing that for several days, and also had been rocking back and forth on hands and knees. Later that week, Saturday the 11th, I came into his bedroom to find him standing up to the crib rail for the first time! That is the first time pulling himself up to standing. (He's pretty excited about it, you can see on his face.)And in the same day, he crawled for the first time, too! He would rock, crawl about four feet, and then sit up. Then he would repeat, only going a few feet each time. Now, a week later, he is crawling all over our house, exploring everything (and even finding stuff I didn't think he'd get to,) and pulling himself up to standing on boxes, stairs, etc. It's like he had to build up all this energy and then all the milestones came at the same time!

These are the first attempts at crawling he made last week.He is very interactive and waves hi and bye at us now, and gives big sloppy kisses and happy screams of delight. He is talking a bit: Mama, Dada, and Hi. And he may say other things, but in his own language! He is such a sweetie, and we love having him in our family.